Zion National Park: A Hiking (Mis)Adventure in Utah

[Tripatini]

by Jessica Seigel

Yearning for Zion? I sure was after flying into Las Vegas, my arrival point, and spending a night in a budget casino hotel before heading east for my big camping and hiking adventure in Zion National Park, Utah. Rising early to the sight of smoking, red-eyed gamblers still at the slots, I hit I-15 North in my rental car, eager to leave the garish lights and everything artificial behind me.

But some three hours and 250 miles later, I was aghast when I pulled through Zion’s southern gate to meet up with my camping buddies. Our assigned spot in the full-up campsite was next to the crowded visitors center. In earshot of the whir of shuttle bus traffic, we were camped beside the busy roadway.

Then we had to leave our parked cars and hop one of the required shuttle buses that loop the park’s popular southern half. The shuttles eliminate horrific traffic jams like the ones at Yosemite, but they felt somehow too organized and tidy, down to automated recordings announcing each stop.

“Court of the Patriarchs,” the voice announces. To your left, do note cliffs named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The promised land? This was more like Disney Land -- the national park edition. And the packaged feeling only got worse my first day climbing the 5,785-foot-high Angel’s Landing trail, surrounded by a panting horde surely as dense as the original Exodus crowd. I vowed to get off the beaten path -- forgetting that finding Zion is never quite what you imagine.

Hitchhikers Guide to Paradise
Helpful rangers told me about one of the park’s distant but still-marked paths, the East Rim Trail. They recommended I drive to the Canyon junction, park, and then hitch ten miles or so on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, where the shuttle doesn’t run. Hitching (considered safe inside the park) would allow me to hike about 12 miles through remote country, ending at a popular, paved path to a shuttle back to my car.

Stuck out my thumb. The first car picked me up. After the chatty Colorado kayaker and his son dropped me off at the trailhead, I found myself alone at last. There was nothing and no one. I was alone, alone, alone except for singing birds and gentle breezes. No paving, just sandy expanses wound into pinyon and ponderosa groves, then open grass and sage meadows, long vistas and knots of soaring oaks.

The Rhythm Method
Finally, I could feel the rhythm of my feet and the pulse of the land. Peace. It was odd, though, that I seemed to be sweating an awful lot. Down my back. Or was that my hydration pack leaking? I was so blissful, I didn’t check. I figured my pack is kinda wet, but the air is arid. It will dry. No worries. (More careful hikers can start laughing now.)

The sun rose higher until the temperature was upwards of 90°F (32°C). I sipped and sipped. My pack -- ignored by me -- dripped and dripped. Naturally, I was soon low on water. Then it was gone. With four or five miles left to go and nobody and nothing around, I had found rugged.

By the time I trudged to the heavily trafficked Weeping Rock observation point, I must have looked like lunch meat for vultures: red and fried. (Zion vultures are more politely known as California condors, which I'd seen the day before whizzing by our clifftop lunch spot -- 12-foot wingspan awesome in open flight just feet from our faces.)

Salvation in Zion
Forget wild. I was relieved to meet up with the touristy types – and I begged for water from the first person I saw. A group of strolling women from Ohio were kindly and quite concerned. They hauled water bottles from their packs, then an apple. Next, a power bar. Parboiled of pride, I took it all and guzzled.

Down at the shuttle stop, an off-duty nurse in white tennies gave me a quart of ice-water. A whisper went up from the waiting afternoon perambulators: "She hiked twelve miles from the backcountry." I confess I felt a tad accomplished, though in backpacker circles I’m a fool, and “backcountry” really means unmarked trails. (Yes, I later found the hole in my pack and patched it with duct tape, which I at least did have in my travel kit.)

South Campsite Toilets and Sinks
That evening, back at our crowded campsite near the immaculate visitors center, I was ecstatic over the running water in the toilets and sinks. (More rustic camping sites may have only chemical toilets and communal water pumps, as I learned a few days later at the Kaibab National Forest campsite outside the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.)

Well-watered and rested that night, I noticed – for the first time -- the beauty of the towering cliffs that nestle the Watchman and South campsites. I heard the waters of the Virgin River burbling nearby, somewhat masking the shuttle traffic. After dark at the little outdoor amphitheater, I loved the ranger's talk on the night skies, especially the part about the immovable North Star guiding ancient navigators. Though hardly 40 days or nights in the desert, a few thirsty hours made me appreciate anything that helps you get back to camp. Even a shuttle bus.

For more information on Zion National Park, click here.

Photos 1 (Kolub Arch) and 2 (Chinle Trail) courtesy of National Park Service. Third photo is the author during a more successful expedition on Mount St. Helens.

[David Lawrence]

I've been in situations like this in Arizona and California and it can be life-threatening. You make good jokes about not being smart about water and then freaked out but really you were pretty tough.